In the End
by Eos Blaze 0402
Summary: She should run away from him, from Damon. But she is a sick woman who was once a girl who fell in love with a name and dreamt up a boy. Who fell in love with the boy and let herself fall into ruin. She is a woman who searches for that brown eyed boy in the blue eyed man... Elejah. Delena. HEA. Happy birthday, Eva!


**In the end**

* * *

She is a lonely girl.

And she grows into a lonely young woman, always hanging on the fringes of human interaction, but studiously avoiding it at all costs.

Few people try, they try to befriend her, to cajole her out of her sadness that always seems to cling to her like a second skin, but they too give up after few efforts.

Her mother accuses her of being weak, a coward and a disappointment.

She hangs her head and listens to her accusations that land on her heart like welts in silence.

Elena Gilbert has no words to explain why she is the way she…

* * *

It all starts with that book, the book she sneaks out of the attic when papa isn't paying attention to read it in the cocoon of her own fluffy, blue blankets. She is a curious child and she loves reading about the lands of old, inhabited by fae, goblins, mages and gods.

Her mama doesn't like it too much when she tries to spend all her time in the books rather than playing with Caroline Forbes.

Elena doesn't like Caroline Forbes much.

It isn't because Caroline is bad or mean.

It's just that Elena prefers her books more.

Mama blames Papa for her obsession with heavy, unreadable, boring tomes.

That night when everyone has gone to sleep, she sits up in her bed silently, fishing out the hidden flashlight from near her feet. She opens her bedside drawer quietly and lifts the slim book she has hidden beneath numerous story books about princesses and their happy endings.

She is six years old when she first turns the page of the journal of a mad man who lived hundreds of years ago, a man obsessed with gods and demons and angels and legions.

It is in there, on the seventh page, near the bottom that she first reads his name.

Elijah.

It is scrawled in a hasty hand as if the author didn't think much of the entity by the name Elijah.

It is such a strange name to be among the likes of Zeus, Perun, Indra and Odin.

What god would have such ordinary, human name?

_Elijah._

She giggles at the thought.

She moves on, turns more pages, gets lost in a story of a little girl who was cursed with godhood because she stole a peach from the mad goddess' garden.

She doesn't remember when she falls asleep, head hitting the pillow as she slumps over, the slim book clutched tightly in her hand.

It is the first night she dreams about a field full of flowers withering as a boy walks among them…

* * *

She starts changing.

Or so her mother says.

She seems more lost in her books, happy to be left in the worlds that come alive on pages.

Papa notices it too.

And it is papa who takes away that slim book, the one she hides in the cover of her pillow, meticulously reading as many pages as she can before she falls asleep.

There are things written in there that she doesn't understand, and the things that she does, but most of all, the book feels like her friend. Like it's a living, breathing thing that knows who she is and how she feels.

It is strange, but Elena doesn't pay much attention to the strangeness of it all.

She is only eight and she is happy with a friend that doesn't talk incessantly or tries to boss her around, who likes the silence just as much as she does.

So, imagine her hurt when Papa separates her from her friend. His mouth is pinched and his eyes behind his spectacles are narrowed.

'Elena Gilbert, where did you get this?' he asks slowly. He is angry, Elena knows that. He is trying to be patient with her, but when she tells him that she sneaked into the attic, the very same one that is off limits to her and pilfered this journal, he will be angrier than he is now.

So, she keeps quiet and stares at her feet, twisting her fingers in guilt.

'Did you read it?' he asks.

She…shakes her head, lying so that he won't be angry anymore.

Mama is angry enough for both of them, she thinks glumly.

He kneels down, his eyes are at her level and his mouth doesn't look too pinched.

'You are too young to read things like this, Elena love,' he says gently as he hugs her, holding her tightly as if he is relieved she hasn't read it.

Silly Papa.

What harm will reading a book do?

He promises to give her different books, better books he says. Books about a courageous boy wizard and his fight against the evil, about the brave girl who volunteers to be sacrificed instead of her sister.

But no book is as interesting as those pages with their fantastical tales.

When she opens any tome and reaches the seventh page, all she sees is his name scrawled indifferently.

_Elijah._

She wonders who he was. What kind of deity had he been, from which pantheon?

She wonders about his lore, his stories that she can't seem to find anywhere…

* * *

She is fifteen years old and her father is dead.

She stands stoically at the sides as they lower her father's shiny, pale casket in the ground.

Her mother's fingers dig painfully in her shoulders, talons that want to draw tears from her eyes that haven't shed any.

She will not cry, she repeats in her head.

Papa wouldn't like to see her crying.

She wonders if Papa will hear the insects chirp more clearly from beneath the ground, if he will get bored of the darkness inside the casket and want to read something.

That night she sneaks in his study and rummages around till she finds her friend, discarded at the bottom of a forgotten drawer.

When she opens it once again, she feels as if the years haven't passed and she's still a girl of eight, reading stories in secret beneath her flashlight.

The first tears come out of her eyes uninvited and she wipes them away furiously, but soon she's hiding her face in her blankets and smothering her cries in the pillow.

She misses Papa.

She misses him.

That night she dreams again of the boy, standing at edge of the flower field.

'Who are you?' she asks curiously.

'I was waiting for you,' he says instead. 'Where were you?'

She is taken aback by his accusatory tone.

'I don't know you,' she says after few moments have passed and she has twisted her fingers enough. 'Why were you waiting for me?'

'Didn't you call out my name?' he asks.

'I did?' she is surprised.

'What is your name?'

She wakes up, the question on her lips and hands out stretched.

'Are you okay, Elena?' Her mother is in her night gown, looking down at her in worry.

Her hands curl around the book in reflex and she looks at it from the corner of her eye.

The page is open at his name.

_Elijah._

'Do…do you mind if I sleep with you tonight?' her mother questions tentatively.

Elena moves over to make space, making sure to hide the book discreetly…

* * *

She searches about him, about any mention of him.

She finds none.

When she has exhausted herself and all the resources at her disposal, she writes to one of her father's friends, enquiring about him.

_About Elijah._

He sends her a dossier on Saint Elijah.

She stops searching.

* * *

She sees him again in her dreams, the boy.

'Are you not tired?' he asks curiously.

'No,' she answers simply. She is not sure what he enquires in regards to.

She looks at him properly this time. In the starlight, he reminds her of a story. The star kissed boy and the girl who wore night on her skin. She smiles at the thought.

His features are stately, no, kingly would be more appropriate. There is an old world beauty in the lines of his jaw, the slash of his cheek. He will one day grow into his blunt nose and thin mouth. A day far from today, his dark brows would add a distinct intimidating air about him.

One day he will fill out the awkward shoulders and lanky frame.

He will not be a tall man, not tall like her Papa, but he will be an imposing one.

'Why do you search for the stories that no one remembers, Elena?' He has eschewed standing in favor of lying on the barren earth, a little away from the where the flowers of yellow bloom under gentle luminescence of moon. He looks at the flowers in longing, just the way Elena looks at the slim book currently hidden beneath her pillow.

_Just the way she looks at that name on the seventh page._

She sighs and makes her way to where he lies, plopping herself beside him as she stares at nothing in particular.

'I don't know,' she confesses after a long moment has passed, staring at the stars that seem too bright in her dreamscape.

'He isn't someone you should waste yourself for,' he mutters.

'You don't know him,' she snaps indignantly.

'And you do?' his question asked in a gentle, pitying tone is the last thing she remembers before her eyes open to stare at the familiar ceiling, sun rays casting long shadows in her room…

* * *

His question haunts her in the daylight.

_You don't know him._

_And you do?_

She doesn't know anything about Elijah and not because of her lack of effort.

She's seventeen and she has gone through her father's papers and his research, devoured all the old books, journals, diaries and collection of pages in the attic, entered hundreds of keywords on the search engine, and thumbed through every related title in public libraries.

_Elijah is nowhere to be found._

The page that bears his name has been turned so many times that edges have become dog-eared.

Who was he?

When did he live?

Where did he live?

Was he really a deity?

There are so many questions, all of them without answers, and her heart hurts a little when she thinks about the boy of her dreams and his smile.

A sudden chill runs down her spine.

Did Elijah even exist or was he only a name scrawled in a madman's hand on a forgotten page?

* * *

He doesn't venture in her dreams every day, the boy, so the next time she sees him, she is nineteen and a college student, and she has fallen asleep over a stack of books in the library.

He isn't sixteen anymore, the boy of her dreams.

He is a young man now.

Gone is the awkward hunch of his shoulders and stumbling gait. He looks comfortable in his skin, just as she is even more uncomfortable in hers.

'I've missed you,' he says fondly, still standing at the edge of the field full of yellow flowers.

She has missed him too, not that she is going to tell him that. The last time they talked, they departed on less than friendly terms.

Instead of answering him, she takes a step away from him, towards the flowers.

'Did you find more about him?' he asks.

They never take his name. Elijah's.

Even if all they talk about is him.

She shakes her head and takes another step towards the flowers. She doesn't want to turn around and face him. Looking him in the eye would mean acceptance of her failure.

And the thought alone of never finding anything about Elijah scares her to death.

'You shouldn't have read his name, Elena. You shouldn't have wondered about him,' he says sadly as he sits down on the edge, eyes heavenward.

She steals glances at his face, noticing in growing embarrassment that she finds him attractive.

He has grown into his face and his body, and the years will only make sure that he ages like a fine wine.

'Why?' she asks petulantly, toes digging into soil, eyes fixed on earth.

'Come here, will you?' he sighs and she raises her head to look at him.

He beckons her close and her feet follow.

Unbidden.

She is captivated by the look in his eyes, the moonlight that casts his silver shadow on the dark earth. She stares at the hollow of his cheek and wonders how his lips will look curved in a smile.

She settles herself beside him, making sure to keep a little distance.

'Can you not forget him?' he questions gently, staring at her face.

His gaze is…unsettling.

She feels her heart fluttering like a bird in her chest. Her palms are clammy, and she is certain that she is blushing.

Elena has never sat this close to a boy before, never heard the sound of his breathing so distinctly.

She is sitting by his side, close enough that she can smell flowers, ink and parchment on him.

Beneath it all, he also smells like ash.

'How do I just forget him?'

'Oh, Elena! Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't fall in love with a name…'

She freezes. There is no judgment in his voice, just sadness.

_Love._

Her heart twists and she closes her eyes, trying hard to find composure.

He has cut her open with one word, laid her bare, this dream companion of hers.

She didn't know what the feeling in her heart was when her father took away the only link she had to him.

To Elijah.

She had been too young then, but not when she found him again.

She doesn't know when she fell in this madness, when she started to think of him as her Elijah.

When he became the sole reason of her existence, the only focus of her life.

A man who doesn't even exist.

A man who probably was nothing more than imagination of an insane man.

A name mistakenly written under the title, Lost Deities.

The cry that escapes past her lips is animalistic. She burrows her face in her hands, hiding her shame from the boy sitting beside her.

She remembers the tentative years of her youth, the ages of sixteen and seventeen when fumbling boys had approached her. Red cheeks and shaking hands had held a chocolate or a rose that she should've found endearing. Instead, she had averted her face and walked in other direction, cruelly walking over their innocent avowals of love, thinking about dark brown eyes and thin lips instead, wondering about deep voice and melancholy air that hung around a boy who she only saw in her dreams.

Elijah.

_Her Elijah_.

Sobs after sobs break free from her and some part of her mind wonders if she's shedding tears in her sleep, if her pillow is wet and awash with her misery.

She remembers the poems she used to write for him, for Elijah, ones that she doesn't anymore. Lines upon lines of adoration and adulation written for a name.

When she couldn't find anything about him, she filled all those gaps with her imagination.

The bitter truth is that she doesn't know who Elijah was.

She only knows who _her Elijah_ is.

He is a lonely deity trapped in a dream, forgotten by everyone but a wisp of a girl who called out his name in innocence after so many millenias.

Her Elijah is her first true friend—the boy she first saw in her dream, one in whose wake all the flowers withered and died.

Her Elijah is her first love—the awkwardly pretty boy who grew into his skin as she grew old.

She weeps for realization is bitter, truth far worse than death.

Her Papa had been right.

_She shouldn't have read that book._

Now she understands, but it is too late to go back. She can't return to undo what she has done.

He shifts closer to her, and wraps his arm around her to pull her into his chest.

He is silent and he lets her stain his black T-shirt with salt.

She doesn't know how time passes in her dreams, but she feels as if it takes forever for all her tears to escape her eyes and dry on her cheeks. The weight of his arm feels real, the chest she hides her face against feels real.

_Is he real?_

'Do you want me to be, Elena?' His fingers tilt her chin so that he can look into her eyes.

She has never seen brown colored eyes like his.

The color reminds her of velvet.

'Why can't you be real?' she asks in daze, ignoring his question.

He smiles, the curve of his lips is beautiful, and he leans to place those same lips on her forehead.

She feels warm.

'Is this not enough?' he whispers in her ear. 'You and me, beneath the starry night. Is it not enough, Elena?'

'You…you are not here every day,' she answers brokenly, staring at him, staring at his face so that she can remember this moment when day steals him away from her.

'I shall come to you every night. In the dreams. I shall always be here, Elena,' he promises.

'Who are you, Elijah?' she calls him by his name for the very first time. His eyes close and his arm around her tightens. She reaches out to smooth the creases on his forehead.

'No one,' he whispers, 'I am no one and nothing, Elena. Just a shadow your mind concocted in madness, in innocence…'

She sees the pain in his eyes, hears it in his voice.

He hurts, just as she does.

'It is okay,' she says, 'if you are madness, I don't need sanity. If you're loneliness, I don't need company…'

'You should forget me and find someone to love. I am but a name, given flesh by your thoughts,' he advises, eyes turned away from her, fingers locked in fists.

'I don't want anyone,' she replies, turning his head so that she can look at his face, look into his eyes. 'I don't need anyone. You're enough. You will always be enough.' She feels warm and her eyelids feel heavy.

'Sleep, Elena.' He kisses her lids and arranges her so that her head is in his lap, his fingers carding her hair.

'You will be here whenever I close my eyes, won't you?' she slurs, holding off sleep to extract a promise from her dream.

He laughs, the sound reminding her of mountains and deserted valleys, of the song of coyote in the darkest of nights and in the wilderness.

'I promise, Elena…'

* * *

Elena Gilbert decides to pursue a degree in creative writing.

It is what she wants to do unlike research or medicine that her mother wants her to do.

Creative Writing is a major that doesn't require sleepless nights, that doesn't demand the hours she can spend with Elijah.

They talk about myriad of things, from the gods of old to her recent obsession of beautifying herself. He notices her vanity in her appearance for his sake and teases her for it.

They walk hand in hand around the field of flowers which seems to go on for eternity. He points out the shapes in the sky, shapes that stars make; ones that she hasn't closely looked at.

And if between all this, their fingers cling to one another, if his voice grows a bit husky and her face red and warm, if he suddenly turns around to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ears, and her heart beats madly, no one knows but them.

It is a peaceful existence, one that she grows used to.

She goes to her classes, does the required work, cooks for herself, does the dishes, takes a hurried shower, slips into her comfy pajamas and burrows in her blankets.

She falls asleep the moment her head hits her pillow.

And then when she opens her eyes, he is there.

Her Elijah, he is always there…

* * *

Years pass in this fashion.

She is now twenty-four.

And she has started missing him when she is not asleep.

When she walks on the street, her traitorous mind whispers what it would be like to walk with him. Her hands in his, steps matching—his longer stride adjusted to accommodate her shorter ones.

When she sits alone on a coffee table, glancing around, watching couples sitting around her, she wonders what beverage he would prefer.

She is aware that he knows her wayward thoughts. It is there on his sad face when she meets him in the dreams that night, in his feather light kiss on her lips.

She has started to want more, more than her formless lover could ever give her.

She has started to wish for a body beside hers when she wakes up in the mornings, of a cup alongside hers when she is finally ready to take her coffee.

She knows it is wrong, wrong to expect all these things from him, with him. It is wrong to burden him with her secret desires and human wants, but she is helpless.

It hurts to see him hurting, to know that they don't exist outside her dreams.

It is the greatest irony that the name he bears is probably the name of a deity.

She is weak in her humanness and he, he is no one and nothing…

* * *

In hindsight, she shouldn't have walked in that classroom.

The image of a man and a woman in passionate throes of desire are imprinted behind her eyelids. Her ears are still ringing from the woman's wanton moans and the man's needy grunts.

When she closes her eyes, all she sees is the man's mouth on the woman's breast, his hands in the curls at the apex of her thighs.

She knows about sex, but before today she has never wondered about it.

How does it feel to have a mouth suckling on your breast?

How does it feel when teeth leave marks on your skin, marks that you wear with pride?

How does it feel to bare yourself completely for someone's gaze?

That night she's the one to pull his head down and touch his mouth with hers.

It is not like lightening, nor the earth moves when she kisses him.

Instead, it feels like coming home.

His teeth tug, they bit, they lave afterwards on the stinging marks that he leaves. She feels flush and her heart thuds, she's never felt more alive than she feels right now.

It's her hands that guide his unsure ones towards her breast; it's her mouth that pleads for intimacy in the way her tongue touches his.

Elijah, she whispers in the night as he kisses the column of her throat, as his hands do away with the blouse she wears.

'Will you be able to forget me now, Elena?' he asks as his fingers graze her slit and she arches like a plucked string.

She is incoherent with pleasure, the warmth and the fire that makes her drowsy in turns, that makes her limbs feel heavy and her languorous.

She doesn't hear his question, lost as she is in the feel of his lips and his fingers.

He teaches her about pleasure that night, but doesn't take the final step. No matter how much she tries, he refuses to take her maidenhead.

When she wakes up, her blouse is nowhere in sight and her hand is between her thighs.

Mortified, she runs to the bathroom and she thinks that she almost hears a chuckle. But when she gazes in her mirror, blood drains from her face and she shivers in her nakedness, limbs shaking at the sight of purple bruises dotting her body.

Bruises on all the places that he bit and sucked…

* * *

She becomes obsessed with her body.

Often, she finds herself naked and in front of a mirror, staring at herself and wondering aloud about her imperfections.

She wants her breast to be a little fuller, her hair to have slight curls rather than lying flatly on her scalp. She wants her eyes to be anything other than ordinary, listless brown that stare back at her.

She doesn't like the way her stomach curves and her thighs touch.

Does he find her beautiful?

He tells her so. As many times as he kisses her or caresses her, he whispers to her about her beauty, but Elena doesn't see it in the mirror.

She wishes he were here, standing beside her, his hands running over her skin, making her feel beautiful.

She scoffs at her greed.

What more does she want from him? Has he not given his all to her?

She flops on her bed, lying over her covers, thinking about him.

She's never seen him walk among the flowers. He just stares at them in yearning. He never follows her when she goes amidst the yellow blooms, choosing to watch her from the periphery instead.

She thinks about his gaze, imagines his voice in her ears—promising her pleasure, promising her everything she desires.

All she desires is him.

Her Elijah.

Her fingers tentatively move through her curls and she feels somewhat embarrassed and foolish at doing this.

'_Elena,_' she hears him whisper. Her fingers move over her slit the way his do.

'_Elena, are you playing with yourself_?' he growls in her ear and she turns to her side hastily, but there is no one. She could swear that she heard him.

'_Elena…_'Her fingers start circling her clit.

Soon, her eyes are closed and head strained away from her body. Her thumb presses on her clit as two fingers piston in and out of her cunt.

She gives a keening cry when she comes, and tears slip from behind closed eyelids due to sheer pleasure.

It is first of many orgasms that she is going to experience by her own hands, orgasms that his thoughts wrench from her body….

* * *

One day it all comes crashing down, her house of cards, her flimsy shot at a happily ever after.

The day starts like most of her days do. She goes on about her routine. She gets up, takes a hurried shower, munches on a stale muffin—her sorry excuse for breakfast—and proceeds to gulp a cup of black coffee. She runs to catch a cab lest she be late for her job.

She works as a fact checker for the local newspaper.

She puts in a long and tiring day and on top of it, gets roped in doing overtime for a colleague who's celebrating her tenth marriage anniversary.

It's late when she walks out of the office, noticing the empty street and absence of cabs. She has never stayed out this late. By this time, she is slipping in her bed, ready to meet Elijah.

She walks hurriedly, her steps quick and mind already steeped in anticipation. Tonight, she will not let him back away, she thinks. She will make him make love to her.

She is lost in her thoughts and not paying attention at all when she bumps into him.

She backs away instantly, apology on her lips and eyes focusing on the person in front of her.

It is Niklaus, she realizes in dread.

Niklaus who is famous for all the wrong things, and he is not alone.

She stares past him at his guys. Six men reputed to be as bad and brutal as him.

'Hello, love!'

She curses herself and the stupid day a month ago when she decided to report him and his gang for assaulting a woman near her office building.

It is another matter altogether that the woman turned out to be Haley, Niklaus' on again, off again fling who likes it rough and dirty and with an audience.

'Look who we have here, Marcel,' Niklaus calls out. 'Little Elena Gilbert.'

She starts backing away a step at a time just as he keeps advancing.

He snatches her purse and she relinquishes the strap. He is welcome to the cash.

'Niklaus, I-I am sorry,' she stutters.

'I told you, you would be,' he states matter of factly, a sinister smile playing on his lips.

He lunges to grab her arm and she stumbles back, cornered against a wall.

Before she can think of anything else, he backhands her so hard that her lips cut themselves on her teeth, blood pooling in her mouth.

'Bitch,' he snarls, 'I hate your kind the most. Self pretentious whores with stick up their ass who think they are too good for the likes of me!'

She cowers from him, falling to the ground, arms hiding the face where bruises are sure to appear.

'Elijah,' she mutters in desperation, 'save me…'

Niklaus' booted foot meets her side and she yelps in pain. 'What are you muttering about?' he asks, crouching in front of her, fists suddenly grabbing her hair to tilt up her face.

'Save me,' she whispers to a man who lives only in her head, exists only in her dreams. 'Elijah, save me…'

She has forgotten that he isn't real, that he might kiss her and wring out her sighs, that he might talk to her, walk with her, but he doesn't inhabit this plane, this reality where she lives in. She has forgotten that she knows only him and no one else.

Niklaus slaps her again across her face, this time the sharp edge of his ring grazes her cheek, taking away her skin as tribute.

'Niklaus, it's enough, man,' one of his guys holler at him.

Niklaus smiles, showing his straight, white teeth.

He reminds her of a man-eating wolf, a beast of wild.

'On contrary, Marcel, I'm just starting.'

She starts crying. She is not proud of it.

She is scared and he is not coming to save her.

'Elijah, please…' she sobs.

Niklaus runs his finger on her cheek, pausing at the edge of the cut that he has given her. 'Are you stuck up bitch in bed too, Elena?' he sibilates.

She screams. She screams Elijah's name as she scratches his face, digging her fingers in his eyes. Before his guys can understand what is happening, she pushes him hard and somehow gets on her feet.

She runs and doesn't look back.

She runs until a cab stops and the driver takes pity on her.

* * *

Her body aches.

She has taken shower twice and yet she somehow feels dirty, as if Niklaus' touch can't be washed from her skin.

Her eyes flutter close, but she refuses to go to sleep.

She doesn't want to sleep.

She doesn't want to see him.

He is nothing more than figment of her imagination.

He is her sickness.

Tears start falling again from her eyes, hot tears that she thought she had shed already. But these are the tears one sheds for the loss of their love, for the loss of a precious life.

She cries softly in her pillows, no one to dry her cheeks and to console her that it's going to be okay. Because she knows it isn't.

_She is never going to be okay._

Emptiness presses from all sides and the loneliness that had not bothered her once before today seems to choke her easily.

It's tough to live without the comfort of touch, she accepts.

It's tough to only exist on dreams.

She falls asleep like that, unaware when she does, still sniffing slightly, eyes swollen and red rimmed, legs bent and pressed close to her chest, arms holding herself, trying to impart comfort that she knows isn't there.

He stands away from her tonight, face averted and stance defensive.

She walks slowly to him. She has to, she has no other choice.

'You are hurt,' he states softly.

She doesn't answer him, just comes to stand beside him, staring at a distance.

He tentatively raises his hand to touch her cheek; she turns her face away.

The silence between them says it all. They don't need words to hurt each other. She is him and he is her, they know each other inside out.

'I told you once, didn't I, to forget me, and to love another?' he reminds her softly, staring at the wound on her cheek.

Her tears are her answer.

'Humans can't live only on dreams, Elena,' he whispers in repentance. 'I should've faded long ago from your mind, let you live your life…'

'I am sorry,' she cries. 'I am sorry I thought I need someone else apart from you, Elijah,' she mutters in panic. 'You are all I will ever need.'

He takes her hands in his and turns her to face him.

His eyes are wet too.

'I was not supposed to be greedy, Elena,' he says. 'I wasn't supposed to cling to you for warmth.'

'You can be selfish,' she says hastily, her hands holding his dear face. 'You can be greedy. You can demand all of me. I will give you all of me.'

He touches the cut on her cheek. 'You are the most beautiful soul I've ever known, Elena Gilbert,' he says as he leans to kiss her cheek. 'Remember that. Always…'

He steps away from her.

There are tears on his cheeks and a sad smile on his lips.

He looks at her one last time before he turns towards the field of flowers.

'Elijah,' she calls out, scared and shivering, standing alone beneath a sky where the moon and stars are slowly being enveloped in an unnatural darkness.

Suddenly, the wind starts to blow, beating the skirt she wears furiously around her legs. The stalks are moving merrily, the flowers joyous—he is coming to greet them at last.

He steps in the field.

The flowers die.

She screams.

He doesn't turn, doesn't come back.

He continues to walk. The flowers turn to ash.

She screams his name, but her voice is lost in the wind…

She wakes up screaming.

She flails and falls down her bed, her abused body protesting. She runs to where she keeps the journal that bears his name.

Elijah.

_Her Elijah._

She almost tears it in half, trying to open the page.

His name is gone.

The spot where his name used to be is blackened and burnt.

She doesn't remember how long she sits there, journal in hand, eyes vacant. It is only the sun's rays that make her stand on her hollow legs. The slim book falls from her hand.

She walks slowly to her room, passing the mirror that stands propped against the wall.

Something makes her take a look.

Her face is whole.

There is no wound on her cheek.

She screams then, and cries too, howling sobs that seem too big to come from her throat.

He is gone.

She's truly alone in this world…

* * *

She runs back to Mystic Falls.

Despite her mother's thousand questions and Caroline's invitation to share secrets, she doesn't tell a single soul what transpired that left her with bruises and a limp.

The bruises fade with time, and she starts to walk normally. What doesn't change is the silence around her, the emptiness in her eyes.

She refuses to sleep in nights, forcing her eyes to remain open until they can't. When she does fall asleep, there are no dreams, no him.

Only darkness and stillness.

Her mother eventually gets tired.

Caroline gives up.

She takes a job with one of her father's friends, sorting through his research, fact checking and editing.

She has no social life despite her mother's nagging. No friends, no lover, no one to talk to or smile at.

She digs out her old diary, one that she only wrote in once when she was sixteen.

In nights, she sits on her bed and writes.

Story about a girl who loved stories.

Story of a girl who fell in love with the man she created with her words on a page…

* * *

Two years go by. She's older, colder and used to loneliness.

Her mother has remarried and moved away. She has acquired new siblings, new father who think sun rises and sets with her mother.

Her mother can now shape the future of her step-children like she couldn't with Elena.

Elena lives alone in the old family home, roams like a ghost in nights in all the rooms, touching the familiar walls, walking on the same carpet that her father once walked on.

She is financially independent.

Her first novel was an instant success.

Apparently, people like reading wistful stories that speak of dreams and sadness, of love that transcends time and reality.

Elena chose to give a happy ending to the girl who fell in love with the character of her own story. She wishes she could give herself the same kind of happy ending.

She still misses him. Misses him like crazy.

Wonders what it would've been like, had he been a real man.

Would they have liked going on holidays, on beaches perhaps?

Would they have married by now?

Maybe had a kid or two?

It's the possibilities that hurt her the most, even now, even after all these years, all the what could have beens.

It's a rainy day when she finds herself sitting on a lone table in the coffee shop, her notebook balanced on her knees as she continues to write. Matt, the owner of the shop makes sure that nobody disturbs her.

She knows Matt has a little crush on her.

He often brings her cold coffee while she's lost in trying to build up her fantasy world. Sometimes, it is accompanied with her favorite chocolate cookies which he blushes and stammers are on the house.

Elena likes to think she is doing kindness by ignoring his fascination with her, but she knows it is cowardice. She doesn't know how she's supposed to react once she acknowledges his interest in her.

All her youth, she shunned the attentions of eager boys and now she doesn't know how she's supposed to feel about Matt's innocent crush.

Despite the years that have passed, Elena is still stuck in the time when love meant Elijah.

She doesn't know how to feel affection for anyone else.

She knows she hurts Matt every time she doesn't return his smiles or evades his gaze completely, but she doesn't know what else to do.

How does one smile for a man who isn't Elijah?

While she's lost in her reverie, someone plops in the chair next to her, shaking their head. Water droplets fall on her page and then break to leave a wet spot tinged with blue of her ink.

She glances up in annoyance, only to freeze completely.

Brilliant blue eyes stare at her, blue so beautiful that she finds herself transfixed.

'I am a fan,' the man states as introduction and she…she stares at him like a fool.

He reminds her of a painting, a face so perfect that she aches.

His pale countenance is far cry from the face she has held dear for so long in her heart. He has the same facial structure as Elijah, but his features are all different. His nose is straighter and longer, his jaw more angular rather than square. His lips are plump rather than being thin and Elena doesn't know what she's doing.

It feels as if an artist took strokes that formed Elijah's face and played with it a little to paint the man sitting in front of Elena.

Where Elijah's features had come together to give an aura of authority to him, the same features on this man blend to present a mask of mischievous liveliness.

'I am Damon,' he says with a raised eyebrow and fleeting smirk that makes her want to smile for some reason.

'Elena,' she answers simply, still looking at him, still searching in his face a man who didn't even exist. That thought makes her lower her eyes.

'I know. I read you first novel and I wept,' he confesses softly, leaning towards her, lending the act an air of intimacy. It feels as though they share a secret, and the thought is not unpleasant.

'Was it because you like the story or was I that bad?' she jokes, surprising even herself. This is perhaps the longest conversation she has had in a couple of months or so.

The last one was with her publisher.

'Oh, I loved your story. It is not every day one reads a dream laid bare so honestly…'

They look at each other in silence.

Even his hair reminds her of Elijah.

They don't look similar, but there is something about him, something Elena can't explain. He feels like Elijah did.

Familiar and hers.

If she closes her eyes now, she is sure that his face will morph into Elijah's in her head.

_What does that say about her?_

'Are you writing something new?' he asks, interrupting thousand little thoughts in her head.

She nods and tries to look at the page in front of her. She needs to ignore him for his own good.

And for hers as well.

'Will you let me read it once you finish?'

'Would you want to?' she hears herself asking.

'In a heartbeat. You are magic, Elena,' he declares sincerely and she can't help but give him a skeptic look.

'You made me believe in fate even when I didn't want to. You taught me that life often is unfair, but we can find beauty and love in the tragedy that is life.'

He is earnest and she doesn't know if he's joking or not.

'I just wrote a story,' she mumbles, growing uncomfortable with his admiring stare.

'A story about hope, mind you,' he counters.

'A story about madness and delusion is more like it,' she scoffs.

'A story about tenacity and miracles,' he corrects. 'You are my hero, Elena Gilbert. You saved me when no one else did. When no one else could.'

She doesn't know why it hurts somewhat to accept his heartfelt praise. Maybe because the one man she wanted to save, she couldn't?

'What are you having?' he asks suddenly, settling comfortably in his chair and fishing out a sheaf of documents from his backpack.

'Black coffee.'

'You look like a Macchiato woman to me,' he says, side-stepping her answer. 'Why don't you try it? It will be my treat.'

He leaves his chair and walks to the counter where the part-timer Matt hires to cover the afternoons is busy watching something on his phone.

She is having a coffee with someone for the very first time in her life.

It feels weird.

* * *

She is looking through the menu in the pricey restaurant she favors once a week when he slides in the chair in front of her.

She is obviously startled.

In dim light and the swaying candle flame, he looks like a hero of a fantasy tale come to life. She blinks stupidly and searches for something to say.

He beats her to it.

'Candle light dinners are best enjoyed between two people, don't you think?' His eyes are full of mischief even as his mouth remains unsmiling.

'There's no law against solitary enjoyment, is there?' she snaps.

'Well, depends on who you're asking. So, what are you having?' he enquires conversationally.

'Braised Salmon with herbs,' she replies casually, aware of his perusal of her face.

'And for dessert?' he prods.

'Haven't decided yet.'

'You seen like an adventurous woman to me. What about you let me eat with yourself?'

'And why should I do that? I don't know you.' She cocks an eyebrow, tone challenging him to come up with something persuasive.

Because she wants him to stay too, doesn't she?

'You can get to know me.'

'Not good enough.' She signals a passing waiter, ready to get him removed from her table.

'Hold on, hold on for a moment,' he mutters hurriedly. 'You can eat more dessert. I will give you mine too and I'm good company. Beats eating alone, doesn't it?'

'What if I like eating alone?'

'I know you don't, Elena,' he says with such a degree of certainty that she's blindsided for a moment.

And that moment is all he needs to order their food.

'You didn't ask what I would like for dessert,' she whispers indignantly.

'Trust me; you're going to love it. It's not every day one gets to share a meal with their favorite author.'

She feels herself blushing involuntarily and prays furiously that the shadows casted by the candle flame somehow hide her pink cheeks.

'How come you're here?' she asks, trying to turn the attention on him. 'Are you following me?' Her eyes narrow in suspicion at the thought.

'I'm not stalking you,' he replies immediately and she is amused at the sight of his red ears. 'I was just passing from here when I saw you enter this establishment.'

'And you decided to follow?'

'Hmm.'

She laughs softly as he pouts. He looks adorable and she almost doesn't miss Elijah.

Almost…

* * *

He wasn't lying when he said he is good company.

He keeps her entertained while she digs in her salmon. In between the conversations, he stealthily cuts his duck in neat bite size pieces and puts it on her plate. He even sneakily transfers veggies from his plate to hers.

She eats it without commenting, abandoning her routinely salmon in favor of the meat that somehow tastes like the best meal she has had in a while.

He waits like an eager boy for dessert and she finds that she likes the shine in his eyes. She hasn't shared a meal with anyone else before today, and she realizes that she likes this companionship while she's eating.

Somehow, eating doesn't feel like a chore today.

The waiter places an extravagant confection of chocolate in front of her and she can't help but smile. She is doing that a lot in his company. The smiling and the laughing. She nearly feels like a different person.

'Here we have our piece-de-resistance,' he announces, 'triple layered choco-lava cake.' He holds a fork, expecting her to take it.

So she does.

'Where's yours?'

'I decided to skip it.'

'But you promised me yours,' she huffs.

He smirks. Fingers steepled beneath his chin, he gazes at her in open admiration.

'We can share a meal next time and I'll let you have mine,' he whispers.

She cuts off a chunk of the chocolate confection and holds it in front of his face.

He takes one look at her determined visage and another at the dangling bit of the cake from which molten chocolate drips on her plate.

He opens his mouth while his eyes continue looking into her eyes.

Her heart has sped up and the hand that holds the fork is shaking.

He holds her wrist gently, and the tremors subside.

The spoon stops shaking.

As his lips leave behind a clean silvery surface, she wonders what has come over her to take such liberties with him and allow some in return.

'It wasn't hard now, was it?' he remarks softly. At first, she thinks that she's not supposed to hear it, but expectation of an answer is clear in his raised eyebrows—a skill she still has not been able to master.

It continues in that vein, the somewhat intimate, somewhat humorous evening that doesn't end when they have a heated exchange of words regarding who will pay for the meal.

He ends up doing so and she in exasperation offers to pay for the next one to which he gladly acquiesces.

They walk side by side after leaving the restaurant. She is in no hurry to return to her lonely home and he doesn't seem to be in any urgency to leave her side.

They walk in companionable silence interrupted by questions that he comes up with.

He walks her home, gives her one of his smirks that he favors and bids her good night before she gets inside her door.

She hums under her breath during her nightly ritual of applying moisturizer after taking a shower and combing her hair.

Is this how it feels when a guy walks you home?

Well, she doesn't exactly know but if this is it, then she likes it…

* * *

She comes to know that his full name is Damon Salvatore and he is an accountant.

Accountant!

She wouldn't have guessed, she thinks. He prefers leather too much and rides his bike a trifle too fast. He likes to barge in her life on almost every day at random places.

He stumbles into her when she goes grocery shopping one day and then continues to stay by her side, choosing vegetables and coercing her into buying numerous greens that she meticulously avoids. In revenge she buys him broccoli.

He looks delighted.

They walk licking ice-cream cones side by side, carrying their purchases and discussing the plot of "Deathless".

She finds herself repeatedly distracted by his tongue, and he catches her sneaking a glance on the umpteenth time.

'There is something on my face?'

She turns her head and stares ahead, cursing herself under her breath.

He bids her a hurried goodbye sometime afterwards, and only then she comes to know that it was his lunch hour.

Which he spent buying vegetables with her?

And he only had ice cream.

She doesn't know why she feels guilty but she does.

She decides she will buy him lunch next time she runs into him.

That next time happens a week later.

She is on her way to the bookstore on a whim when she sees him sitting in the coffee shop, munching on a sandwich by himself. He looks lost in thought.

This time she is the one to walk to his table and sit down in chair beside him without invitation. He's startled and she smiles when she sees him almost bite his tongue in his haste to stop himself from snapping.

'I thought I would give you a taste of your own medicine,' she remarks as she looks at excel sheets strewn in front on him. 'Rough day?'

'I like numbers. It's just my boss that I abhor,' he whines.

'Is he such an asshole?'

'No, he's a saint. And that makes him hating more difficult. He's just clueless, that's all,' he sighs.

She freezes.

_Elijah._

Elijah used to do that. That releasing his breath and dropping his shoulder simultaneously thing. That rolling his eyes and slightly tilting his head to the left thing.

It's the first time she remembers Elijah so clearly in Damon's presence. It's the first time since their first meeting when he feels like and reminds her of Elijah so vividly.

'What can I do to help?' she hears herself asking in a daze.

'Your presence here alone is a huge help,' he says happily. 'Mind sitting with me for few more minutes?'

She nods automatically.

His pronounces his words like Elijah too.

'I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?' She sees sudden worry on his face.

_She sees Elijah._

She shakes her head.

While he continues to work, she sometimes looks at the window at his back or at the potted plant on the right. She stares at her hands and sneaks glances at him.

His hair falls on his brow and he chews his lower lip between his teeth as he calculates something.

In his every gesture, she sees Elijah.

In his very presence, she remembers Elijah.

She thought she was over it. After the initial shock of Damon inserting himself in her life—she had thought less and less of Elijah. She had not forgotten him, for it is impossible to forget something that used to be so integral to her existence, but she had at least seen Damon for himself, not for some man whose ghost she can't lay to rest.

But she's clearly not over it.

His abused lip attracts her eye over and over again and she wants to pull it free from the edge of white that gleams before sinking into the soft pink flesh.

She desires him. It is a painful realization. She would've been happy had she remained oblivious.

For she is not sure whom she desires.

Is it him or is it Elijah?

* * *

She grows shameless in her pursuit of him.

She finds herself frequenting a particular street or an establishment if it increases the chance of bumping into him. She brazenly asks for his number and gives her in return. She texts him all the time and waits for the replies.

He basks in her attention, opens up like a flower because of her attentiveness.

He couldn't be happier about the way she walks a little too closely, tries her best to invade his personal space and demands attention.

She grows bold in her shame one day when they're walking and slips her hand in his, the fingers between the empty spaces of his fingers and clasps tightly. He is stunned, but only for a moment.

The smile that he gives in return is so bright that it shames the sun.

She wants to turn away from him. It is not fair that she is trying to search her dream lover in him, trying to convince her mind that Damon is Elijah's substitution.

Her sickness is perverse in the way she tries everyday to bring him back—the dream she can no longer see.

Many a moment she has bitten her lip and drawn blood to stop herself from calling him Elijah.

He is Damon.

Damon.

Damon.

She continues chanting his name in her head like a litany, like a prayer for forgiveness that she only half-remembers.

She should run far away from him.

In her madness, she will break him and not even notice. She will hurt him and it won't even matter to her. The light will dim in his blue eyes, he won't smile as easily as he does now and his heart would hurt when she will tell him that he didn't matter.

He was just filling in for a man who didn't exist.

_Who will never exist._

Blue eyes. Damon has blue eyes and his lips aren't thin, she tries to remember. He isn't always gentle and he hates her sadness.

She tries to memorize things that are uniquely Damon's, things she can hold onto and not lose herself when her mind tries to trick her into believing that he is Elijah.

She should forget him.

She should run away.

But she is a sick woman who was once a girl who fell in love with a name and dreamt up a boy. Who fell in love with the boy and let herself fall into ruin…

* * *

She has known him for four months now.

_Damon Salvatore._

He likes fresh banana pancakes in the morning and enjoys feeding her chocolate. He likes holding her hand when they walk and when they go to watch movies.

He loves numbers and is a nerd about 'Doctor Who'.

He loves mythology and the way she narrates a story.

He likes cooking for her.

They still haven't kissed yet.

He stares often at her lips and she lowers her head because his gaze reminds her of brown eyes staring at her in passion.

She still thinks about running away from him once a day, sometimes even when she's still in his company. He smoothes out the frown on her face and doesn't pry into the reason…

* * *

_She runs away and hides in her home when he kisses her._

'Cause he kisses like Elijah, tastes like him too.

It is a cloudy evening when they find themselves walking out of the coffee shop. Rain starts to fall, small drops that cling to her hair and her lashes; that gleam like dew on his dark hair. She raises her face to the sky and lets the rain wash her madness for few seconds, but he is laughing and complaining, dragging her too soon to take refuge beneath the side of a building, under concrete eaves.

The laughter dies on his lips and he stares at her.

Riveted.

He moves closer in an already small space and her heart is a sparrow that has taken flight in strong winds. His stares at her bare lips, wet with rain, her cheeks and her eyes that hide desire.

His hooded eyes make her shiver and she feels suddenly parched despite the beverages she sampled earlier.

He kisses her.

Unlike her expectations, there are no fireworks.

The ground doesn't move beneath her feet.

_It feels like coming home._

'_Elena…' _he sighs against her lips, a dopey smile on his face.

He is Elijah.

No, no he is Damon.

She takes a step back from him, in the rain.

'Elena?'

He is Damon.

Elijah is gone.

Elijah never existed.

She looks at the man who has been nothing but good to her, for her.

He will hate her once he knows.

She can't see him hating her.

And so, she runs away while he keeps calling her name, quickens her pace when she hears him pursue her…

* * *

She continues crying as he bangs on her door.

'Elena. Elena, open up.'

She can't. She can't face him. What is she even going to say?

She has made a mess of things.

So, she remains curled up on the floor, against her door as he keeps on pleading with her to open up…

* * *

It is a week after the kiss and she is too sick to move from her bed. During past few days, she has forgotten to eat and sleep. She just lies on her bed and continues to think about him.

About Damon.

She is filled with guilt and self-loathing and if dying were easy she would die in a heartbeat.

When she closes her eyes, she sees Elijah.

And wonders if what she feels for Damon is somehow what betrayal is.

But she owes it to Damon, doesn't she? Few tender feelings that she only felt for him, for the blue eyed man and not the brown eyed boy. They are few and far in between her madness. A smirk, a teasing glance, few mischievous words—little things that she desperately tries to hold on to before she forgets them. Before the belief that he is her Elijah maddens her.

'Elena!' she closes her eyes at the sound of his voice. Damon's voice. Wasn't it enough that she used to hear Elijah, now she's hearing Damon too?

'Elena,' he cries desperately and she feels someone's palm against her face.

It's pleasantly cool.

She falls asleep…

* * *

When she comes around, the first thing she sees is Damon.

He is sleeping, his head lying over his folded hands. The sun is dying in the sky and its orange blood shines on the glass panes of her window.

He is a mirage, isn't he? She is sick and she dreamt of his voice and his touch and here he is.

It's okay. He can haunt her.

If he haunts her, then her head won't think he is Elijah, for Elijah already haunts her in his absence and even her head knows that his absence is a certainty that can't be erased.

He stirs. She sees him waking up, blinking his eyes in confusion.

Then he sees her.

'Elena, you gave me a scare,' he admonishes.

She smiles. 'The real you would have said the same thing.'

'Real me?' He touches her forehead.

He feels real, but then Elijah had felt real too.

She is insane, she glumly accepts because her mind apparently can't distinguish between reality and illusion.

'You shouldn't have run away in rain,' he chides. 'You made yourself sick. See?'

He gets up and is about to go when she grabs his hand.

'Hallucinations aren't supposed to leave, are they?' she asks expectantly.

He kneels by her bedside, holding her hand against his cheek. 'I'm here, Elena,' he says. 'I will always be here.'

'Don't say that!' she hisses. 'Don't ever say that. He said it too, didn't he? Where is he now. Nowhere.'

'Whoever he was, he must have left you because he couldn't stay. Nobody would leave you out of their own will, Elena,' he imparts gently, face close to her face. So close that she feels his warm breath on her cheeks.

He kisses her palm. 'I am real and I'm here,' he says with finality. 'And I'm going to fetch you a glass of water so that you can take your meds.'

'You are not lying, are you?' she asks in a small voice, little girl peeking through her words.

'You can count on me to always be here, Elena. For as long as you want…'

* * *

He nurses her back to health and in between the times when she is awake, he slowly teaches her to trust him. He is as patient as the mother bird and she the new hatchling—she puts her faith in him.

Over the course of a week, she slowly opens up about him, about Elijah.

He listens without offering his two cents and she is thankful, for she doesn't know what she would've done, how she would have answered had he asked something in between.

He doesn't look at her like she is crazy, like she needs to be admitted in an institution for mentally ill—the way she sees herself sometimes when she looks into a mirror.

He doesn't look at her with pity. He looks at her just the way he did when he first sat down on her coffee table uninvited.

'You were only lonely, Elena,' he says when she has cried out her tears for the boy she loved. 'You were young and you started believing in an abstract entity. It's not a crime.'

'Who does something like this?' She laughs in self-deprecation. 'Who wastes their life chasing after a boy in a dream?'

'Extraordinary people. Brave people. People who desperately believe in miracles, in love. People who are as beautiful inside as they are on outside,' he replies softly.

They are sitting on the bench in the garden. The stars twinkle merrily as the insects continue to buzz around. Her head is on his shoulder; his arm is around her.

'You don't know all of it,' she murmurs, steeling herself for confessing the extent of her sick mind.

And in halting words and countless apologies, she confesses her delusion. Tells him who she used to search in him just a week before.

Still does sometimes.

He laughs. 'I'm flattered,' he says.

'Are-are you not angry?' she enquires in bewilderment.

'Why should I be?'

'That I didn't see you for you. That I am not sure whom am I attracted to,' she divulges in humiliation.

'Can I kiss you, Elena?'

Her eyes are wide and her mouth slightly parted. He turns his head and lays his lips on hers.

He tastes like mint and her head swims in delirium. He slowly turns in her direction, pulling her in his arms, his hands frame her face.

She feels herself responding. Slowly her fingers touch his cheeks, his jaw, his eyes.

'Eyes on me, Elena,' he says against her lips and she finds herself opening her eyes, staring in his blue ones.

This time when he slightly tilts his head and covers her mouth, she sees blue.

He doesn't bite her lip but sucks on it instead, and all the while he's doing it, he makes her watch him. Watch him kiss her.

Him.

Damon.

Not Elijah.

His tongue swipes over her lower lip and she opens her mouth. He molds her to him, presses her so close that she is a part of him.

Damon.

He is Damon and he kisses like she belongs to him.

Like she is his.

'Who are you attracted to Elena?' he asks gently against her mouth.

She bites his lower lip in the answer…

* * *

She gives it to him, her virginity, the stretch of hymen that she had once been eager to lose to a brown eyed boy. He kisses her tears and gently, patiently he coaxes her body to experience pleasure.

She wants to say thank you. _Thank you, love, for looking past my madness and my insecurities. Thank you for loving me._ But the words don't come.

For one last time when he rises over her before completion, she closes her eyes and from the grave of her memories, she resurrects her first love to say goodbye.

He breaks apart, makes her break apart. In the aftermath of carnage that pleasure brought in its wake, she shivers in his arms and he pulls the covers over them.

She feels boneless.

If only she could close her eyes—

He chuckles. 'You are good for my ego, love.'

'Hush, you! I'm not sleeping,' she slurs.

'Go to sleep. I will guard your dreams,' he promises as he kisses her forehead.

She hides her face in the crook of his neck as he gathers her in his arms beneath the blankets. She falls asleep.

The eyes that look at her lovingly while she sleeps are no longer blue but brown. The mouth is thin, jaw square and forehead wide.

The god who once tended the flowers of heaven continues to gaze at his beloved—the only human who remembers his name…

* * *

_Once upon a time, long, long ago when the universe was brand new, the goddess gave birth to three sons. The first born was the God of Life, the second the God of Death and the youngest decided that he won't be a god of anything._

_He just wanted to be his mother's son._

_The God preferred the first born, the god of life whose fingers often played the symphony of creation and adored the second born, the god of death who often obliterated civilizations in blink of an eye, his obsidian blade forever hanging from the scabbard on his waist. He only tolerated the youngest who wasn't interested in anything much than following his mother._

_The Goddess named her favorite "Elijah"._

_Unlike his brothers, the god of nothing wasn't interested in his father's throne or his mother's powers. _

_The god of nothing wanted to serve the creation instead._

_So, while his brothers divided the skin of the universe between them after his father's ascension to the ether, he chose to be his mother's companion, to serve her as she retreated into heaven and withdrew from all the matters of universe._

_He created the very first flowers to make her smile, fragrant blooms of soft colorful petal that swayed when she walked among them._

_He created a garden for her of flowers the color of sun._

_He tended to them as he tended to her._

_As her hair grew white and her skin sagged, she would often teach him about the ways of the universe she had created. _

_He would listen to her ramble about power and godhood and void and ether as he drew a comb through her locks._

_She started calling him god of flowers._

_And so, god of nothing became the god of flowers._

_The goddess grew mad, her days filled with memories of the times of old, her nights she spent walking among the flowers she adored._

_He weaved the first dream for her, so that she could sleep, so that he could put ointment on her bleeding feet. He painted the sky and stars and created flowers in the dream so that she would not know she had been sleeping._

_When she closed her eyes, the goddess smiled for the first time in eons._

_And she slept._

_At last._

_Never to wake up again._

_As punishment, the god of life and god of death trapped the god of flowers in his dream, the one he had created for his mother. They took away his powers, stripped him of his titles and left him as god of nothing._

_They erased his name, his memories from the minds of the civilizations._

_They snuff out his existence from the very fabric of universe._

_He only existed within the dream, in the heaven that his brothers abandoned._

_And so, he was forgotten until a human took his name, until a human wondered about him, until a human stumbled into the secret heart of the land of dreams._

_Until she fell in love with him…_

* * *

Elijah continues to hold her as she sleeps, his beloved who loved him with a heart so pure and naïve that she willed him out of his prison by her sheer desperation.

He still doesn't know how he woke up, how he walked out of the heaven that now lies in ruins in some distant corner of the universe.

He has no idea how his name came to be jotted down on a paper.

He doesn't care.

_He is Damon now._

He is supposed to be human.

He will live his life as one, by her side, he thinks. And in every life, every reincarnation, he will seek her out.

He will love only her.

He is certain.

She is Elena and now he is Damon, the god of flowers who used to be god of nothing…

* * *

**Keeping up with tradition, I am late again. I tried finishing it before 2nd March, but I couldn't. Happy birthday, Eva. I have tried to combine two things that you like. I feel messed up and tiered. Happy birthday again, Eva! It's tough to be in Elena's headspace. I hope you enjoy the story. And as always, I'm on my hands and knees, begging for reviews, saying please…**


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